142 COOPERATIVE MARKETING 



of the California Fruit Growers Exchange may be named 

 as the chief cause of the outstanding progressiveness of 

 the citrus growers in comparison with other farmers. All 

 of the business and technical problems of the industry come 

 up for discussion and decision. Local viewpoints perforce 

 give way to attention to the good of all concerned. Each 

 grower or manager gets the wisdom of the group to apply 

 on his own problems. More important still, he sees that 

 his problems are not peculiar to himself and that they can 

 best be solved by intelligent cooperation with others who 

 are working on the same difficulties. Then improvements 

 are immediately carried back to the producing districts 

 and can be in general operation before the information that 

 anything new has been worked out could have penetrated 

 to the farmers of an unorganized industry. 



Under such auspices, where the men from dififerent sec- 

 tions are meeting so frequently, petty misunderstandings 

 and local jealousies do not flourish. These men discuss 

 their achievements, and it soon becomes apparent to a man- 

 ager or a grower that there are others besides himself who 

 know something about the citrus business. He even loses 

 his belief that his is at least one grove or packing house 

 in which things are done so well that improvement is im- 

 possible. At such gatherings comparisons of results ac- 

 complished by the various associations are in order, and 

 a manager soon discovers the fact if his house does not 

 compare favorably with the others in efficiency. He there- 

 fore has the strongest incentive toward improvement, for 

 his growers are not likely to look on with equanimity if 

 the manager's performance is not up to par. Without these 

 meetings the growers of an inefficient association would be 

 very slow in realizing that their packing house methods 

 needed overhauling, and the manager would not have the 

 information that would make rejuvenation possible. 



